On Seeing the Elgin Marbles (34)

The Hellenistic Ideal
1. The Romantics often viewed this period as the cultural ideal
Appreciation of Beauty
1. 'Such dim-conceived glories of the brain, bring round the heart an indescribable feud; so do these wonders a most dizzy pain that mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude wasting of old Time'
  1. The Beauty of the Marbles create a conflict within Keats, he is grappling with how something can be so beautiful and so eternal - 'rude wasting of old time' relays that he understands time will ruin them at a point but they will outlive human life
    1. Time wastes away, causes damage and therefore suffering.
  2. Impermeance of the human soul
2. Keats mixes nature with manmade beauty to show true appreciation
  1. 'With a billowy wave - a sun'
    1. Nature is absolutely permanent, the final thought in the poem
Mortality
1. My spirit is too weak - mortality weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep
  1. The soul, physically and emotionally weakened by the beauty of the marbles
    1. 'Unwilling sleep' - connotations of death & the inevitability of it, humans cannot prevent sleep just like we cannot prevent death - the Marbles outlive humans therefore they have more worth
      1. Irony: Sleep is restorative therefore why would it be unwilling
      2. Or unwilling as in it will not come
2. 'Like a sick eagle looking at the sky'
  1. Simile: longing and escapism - typical of the Romantics. The image of freedom being denied; extremely sad, especially as Eagles are symbols of strength it makes the sickness almost seem inadequate
  2. Image provokes a contradiction and therefore somewhat of a conflict - which is mirrored in 'an indescribable feud'
  3. The Eagle is longing - does the Speaker long for death?
Context: The Elgin Marbles are from the Parthenon, they were brought to England by Lord Elgin and purchased by the Government
PETRARCHAN SONNET

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On Seeing the Elgin Marbles (34)

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	Created by Caitlin McFadyen over 6 years ago